If you’re looking for a way to boost your family’s income and have more financial flexibility, these side hustle ideas might be just what you need. Side hustles are a great way to boost your income and explore business ideas with few upfront costs or major time commitments.
With a side hustle, you can do as much extra work as you want and scale up or down depending on your time and your family’s needs. There are all kinds of side hustles throughout many industries.
Many can be done from the comfort of your living room or home office, which makes them ideal for busy parents. Today, we will examine some of the best side hustle ideas for individuals and discuss how to involve your family.
The Family That Hustles Together…
Side hustles are a great way to instill many of the values you find important. Working together as a family can help you model responsibility, work ethic, and pride in a job well done for your kids.
It’s also a great way to teach kids about financial responsibility and show them that if they want money, there are opportunities to earn it. Depending on what you choose as a side hustle, your family might be working alongside you or occasionally helping with small tasks.
Some side hustles, like Uber driving, aren’t appropriate for kids– and involving them may get you in trouble. But others, like dog walking, petsitting, social media creation, and user testing, can be fun and educational for kids.
Side Hustle Ideas
Want to start with a side hustle but aren’t sure how to start? Here are some of our favorite ideas.
Delivery Driving
Apps like Uber Eats, DoorDash, and Postmates make it easy to be a delivery driver. You go to restaurants, pick up food, and deliver it.
Family-Friendly: Yes! Uber Eats drivers can bring their kids on deliveries so long as their insurance is up to date. Check your specific app or platform for their rules.
Dog Walking
If you’re an animal lover, this side hustle is excellent. Lots of people have dogs that need walking during the day. This is a great opportunity for stay-at-home parents or folks who work from home and want an excuse to get outside.
Family-Friendly: Yes! Older kids can help walk dogs. Just make sure that the kids are respectful and know how to behave around dogs, and if a dog is nervous or reactive around kids, don’t bring them with you.
Focus Groups
Joining a focus group means getting paid to hang out with a small group in person or online and share your thoughts on a product, service, or idea. You might be asked to try out a new product and give feedback. It’s fun to make some extra cash while sharing your opinions.
Family-Friendly: Sometimes! Focus groups rarely ask for feedback from participants under the age of 18. However, focus groups frequently recruit parents of young kids.
Grocery Shopping
Services like Instacart and GoPuff allow you to be a personal shopper for someone’s groceries. You shop their list and deliver groceries right to their door. It’s a flexible way to make extra cash on your schedule.
Family-Friendly: Yes! The whole family can go to the grocery store. However, some services have a policy where only the approved delivery person can be in the car during deliveries, so check with the company first.
Petsitting
A little more involved than dog walking, petsitting involves looking after pets at your home or other peoples’ homes. If you do this through an app like Wag! or Rover, you don’t even have to try to find clients– they’ll come to you.
Family-Friendly: Yes! So long as the pets are ok around kids, you can get your whole family involved in their care.
Streaming
Livestreaming first became popular for sharing video game gameplay, but today it’s expanded into streaming anything you can imagine. It’s easy to start, especially when using a Twitch tv or YouTube platform with straightforward monetization setups.
Family-Friendly: Yes! Teens are allowed to stream on most major platforms. If you stream with your kids, you can have fun bonding while playing games or doing projects.
Surveys
Online surveys pay you to answer questions about different topics. These topics include shopping habits, political opinions, product experiences, and more.
These surveys don’t usually pay very much– $5 is about the upper limit, and most surveys pay much less. But these are extremely quick and rarely take more than 15 minutes to complete.
Family-Friendly: Yes! Your family can work together to find surveys, and different family members can take the same survey to earn more money.
User Testing
Do you spend a lot of time on your phone or computer? Do you want to get paid for some of that time? User testing might be the side hustle for you! User testing means you will be paid to test websites, apps, and products. You will then be required to give feedback about whatever you tested.
Family-Friendly: Yes! Older kids can easily help out with this type of user experience testing.
Viral Content Creation
Do you know those short videos and memes that get passed online? Somebody has to make them, and that person could be you. Platforms like Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram have creator programs that let you monetize content like entertainment shorts, instructional videos, commentary, and more.
Family-Friendly: Yes! This side hustle might be easiest if you have kids who can tell you what’s cool and trendy in their age group.
Are you a stay-at-home parent? Learn ways to boost your income.
